Such roll grinding machines are used, e.g., for grinding working and support rolls used in sheet metal rolling mills, plastic plate rolling mills, and calenders. These rolls always have, as a rule, a shape which deviates from a pure cylindrical shape, and have a concave or crowned profile or a combination of both. During grinding of these profiles, it proved to be disadvantageous that a grinding wheel, because of its shaft or grinding spindle extending parallel to its axis, almost always grinds the roll with an edge and thus does not contact the roll along its entire surface. As a result, the grinding is effected with a very small longitudinal feed to avoid the formation of steps in the roll, with a corresponding resulting increase of the grinding time.
To eliminate this drawback since long ago, it is known to so pivot the grinding wheel-supporting spindle and to adjust it with respect to the roll that the grinding wheel always engages the profile tangentially to a most possible extent, whereby the grinding can be effected with approximately an entire wheel width. In order to achieve this, the roll grinding machines are designed with a possibility of a pivotal movement of the upper rest. This, however, requires not only an additional separation of the support. In addition, on one hand, it is very difficult to achieve an absolutely hysteresis-free pivotal movement about a stationary point and, on the other hand, to achieve simultaneously the necessary for the grinding process damping in the separation surface.